Vincent Laforet video offers helpful tips on time lapse photography

Ever wonder how to create one of the many stunning time-lapse videos we've featured on Imaging Resource? Well, if you have about six minutes to spare, this video tutorial shot on location in Bryce Canyon, Utah by Canon Explorer of Light Vincent Laforet should help get you started.

Called "The Basics of Time Lapse Photography," the video is an excellent overview on how to create a time-lapse clip, which, as Laforet points out, is "a great way for photographers to capture motion with their still camera equipment."

If you're unfamiliar with the term "time lapse photography," it's a technique, as its name suggests, for capturing the passage of time of a particular scene or event. A photographer can accomplish this by shooting images in short intervals -- such as every one to two seconds -- of an event and then playing them back at normal speed to produce an effect where time appears to be moving faster, aka "lapsing."

In Laforet's introductory video, which is actually the first part of a series on time lapse photography, he breaks down some of the camera gear you'll need along with "some of the key philosophies when shooting," including the following five tips:

1) Look for change and movement in an event you want to capture

2) Anchor your shots with a strong foreground element

3) Determine the duration of your event

4) You will need 24 frames per second for smooth movement during playback

5) You can never shoot too many frames (the only downside being the large amounts of data you will collect and need to store)